You're sitting on the toilet. Congratulations. Others weren't so lucky.

Tag Archives: fear

I had the fantastic opportunity to take a cooking course in Tuscany, a glorious week filled with amazing foods, fabulous classmates, a little sight-seeing, and copious amounts of really good wine. It was the best of times for sure.

After the course was over, my little party boarded the train to Venice for a week of culture, shopping, and some basic, unapologetic tourism. Shortly into the trip, I felt the rumble. I knew that rumble. The non-stop copious amounts of wine were taking their toll. It was time for a cleanse.

I passed the time ignoring the rumble by chatting with one of my classmates — a Brazilian and about the most stunningly exotic creature I have ever met. She got off somewhere along the way to catch a connecting train to Milan, and we continued on to Venice.

The urge to purge was getting to be intense, but having experienced this before, I was determined to not use the public restroom in the train station. I was likely going to be in there for a while, so the privacy and comfort of my own private hotel room was what I wanted. It’s what I needed.

When the train came to a stop in Venice, I grabbed my luggage and bolted. I got a cab and made a bee-line for the Marriott, checked in mercifully fast, and received the card key to my room.

My room. The room was lovely and well appointed. At least I think so; I only caught a passing glimpse as I dashed to the bathroom and set about taking care of some simmering, long-overdue business. Once the gates were opened, there was no stopping it. Nothing to do but relax and let the cleanse progress. I checked out the facilities: bidet, sink, glass shower with a chain hanging down that said “Emergency,” TP on the wall to the left, big walnut door —

And then it happened: the lights went out. The air cut off. It was dead dark and calm in there. I felt the wall for the door handle to crack the door for some light. Found it. Turned it. Nothing. Try as I might, the door would not budge.

I started fiddling with the lock, thinking maybe it had auto-locked. Still nothing. It got more and more still in there and hotter and hotter. That’s when I knew I was going to die in a Venetian hotel bathroom without ever seeing Venice, that most beautiful city of canals and gondolas. Nope, not for me. A Marriott bathroom: that is Venice to me.

I made a concerted effort to leave the toilet and cleaned up as best as I could. This seemed an inappropriate time to try to master a bidet, though it could prove useful in the cleanliness department. In the pitch dark, how do you know if you are fully fresh down there? Still, not the time to learn a bidet.

The room was now stifling hot. I wondered if perhaps my group would come looking for me. I deemed myself clean, and I felt my way along the wall to wash my hands. What would happen if I pulled the emergency cord? Did I want to risk finding out? Would it be better to just die in here and let housekeeping find me the next day?

I returned to the throne and made an effort to get out of that hellhole. After about 20 more minutes of tinkering, I learned that there was a fine art to turning the lock halfway while lifting the handle at the same time and pulling. One hour in there — cleanse, clean, and panic totaled — and I was out.

The bathroom door was never shut again the rest of the week.

It turns out I didn’t know the most basic of facts: European hotels are fond of an energy-saving feature where you put your room key in a power slot in the wall to enable lights and air. Leave for the day to tour about, and it eliminates your ability to leave the lights on and the air blasting. Nice feature, but I was unaware.

I was grateful I got out of the bathroom and discovered the power slot, but not grateful enough to tell the others in my group about it. I let them figure it out their own damn selves.